So last week, on February 12th, I rolled into the doctor’s office and heaved my flabby folds onto the scale to discover I’d lost another five pounds. Very sweet – especially when the shed amount the week prior was merely a pound and a half. This brings the current total weight loss to 27 pounds since January 2nd. Not bad for a little over a month.

Then, the NY Post ran a piece on Page Six which made me realize how far I’ve got to go…

Nothing crushing, right? In terms of the Post’s Page Six, I got off light. Problem is, the story makes it sound like I started at 230 and I’m heading downwards from there. Lemme tell ya’ something: if I weight 230, I wouldn’t be blogging about losing weight; I’d be stuffing my fat maw with starches and sugars in a veritable orgy of food, glorious food. I dream of being 230. 230 is a months-away, pie-in-the-sky quasi-pipe-dream.

Inspired by the loss of nearly thirty pounds, I decided to drag the old jeans shorts – the pairs that haven’t fit in months – out of the drawer-of-shame. From that over-stuffed corner of the closet where clothes that can no longer hide my anti-slender go to die, I drew what I assumed would be the tightest of the bunch: the Enyce shorts that’d last kissed my ass circa October ’06. The idea was simple: see how close I could get to buttoning the already over-sized couture-of-choice for the thin-challenged, as well as the rap community.

(Indeed, the secret of avoiding the easily-identifiable bulge brands available in all standard issue Big & Tall stores is to hit what most white folks commonly refer to as “the black malls”, where elephant-trunk shorts and oversized shooters can be found in abundance. Enyce, FUBU, Sean John – these clothiers cater to a clientele that prefers their pants baggy. And what’s baggy on the hip-hop crowd is a just-fit for those of us who are fat, white and lame. So if you’re a fat shit like me, live in L.A., and find yourself frustrated by how little you’re catered to, fashion-wise, at the Beverly Center or The Grove, trust me: man-up and get your ass to the Fox Hills Mall over in Culver City.)

So I slid the shorts over my ham-hocks and my cellulite-studded stumps and hiked them motherfuckers past my ass, preparing for a bigger inhalation than one would take if engaged in an “I can hold my breath underwater longer than you”-contest at the neighborhood pool. Gut sucked in, I summoned the power of Grayskull for the strength to pull that shit closed just long enough to fasten them and zip up, when a funny thing happened…

I was met with no resistance. They closed easily (or easily enough). I could feel breathing space – enough so that I didn’t dread exhaling, ‘lest I Hulk out of the shorts in question. I’d done it: I’d lost enough weight to abandon my super-fat pants for my standard-fat pants. I was (am) still fat, though not as fat as I was a month and change ago. Granted, it’s like coming in third instead of eighth at a Special Olympics event, but fuck it: I’ll take the bronze and keep struggling for the gold.

Bolstered by this minor, yet strategic victory, I did what any dieter worth their salt would do…

I ate a turkey meatball.

Then another.

Then six more over the course of the week.

I’m a fairly smart cookie. I’ve proven myself smart enough to build a career out of almost nothing, with no connections and limited skills. I’ve proven myself smart enough to woo and wed a woman way out of my league. I’ve even proven myself smart enough to turn hobbies into revenue streams – selling all my blogs (that I wrote for free, mind you) to Titan Books in the UK for publication as one giant compendium (due later this year). But when it comes to food and self-control in the arena of eating? I’m totally retarded.

Will the unabated turkey meatball indulgence have an adverse effect on my progress thus far? I’ll find out later today, at this week’s weigh-in.

Until then, check this shit out: a brand new SModcast!

SModcast, an ongoing conversation between me and Scott Mosier, is now online and available only at QuickStopEntertainment.com!

SModcast 3: Sex and Violence and Bathrobes.

In which our heroes plot to bilk the innocent out of a buck a pop, reminisce about an over-crowded condo, spend far too much time dreaming up the ultimate guest list, finally reveal the horrifying tale (tail?) of the Dog Fight, relive their own bloodiest battles, make with talk of a first handy, and recall a homoerotic adventure that finds two teens partially disrobing, strictly for the sake of boyhood shenanigans.